"Even the word 'love' doesn't do justice to it - it's like the feeling that you're home, it's a very welcoming and very, very comforting feeling." (Anita Moorjani on death)
I can't stop watching YouTube interviews with Anita Moorjani. She just beat out Martha Beck and Carl Jung for my Top Sage seat. So love-filled, so simple, so humble, so normal - and so HELPFUL, I'm finally able to synthesize much of what I've been grappling with for so long. And she talks about practical things, like parenting, and living with these necessary but blind educational, political, and financial systems.
To summarize her story: she had advanced stage 4 lymphoma, essentially died, then came back after meeting her dad and best friend in the place that comes after this. When she came out of her coma, she wanted to listen to Dancing Queen over and over, the first food she asked to eat was chocolate ice cream, and the first activity she wanted to do when she was released from the hospital was go shopping. So the R-complex in our brain is a gift after all, is a delightful part of being alive! We become human partly to experience ice cream and shopping and music! If I was an infinite God, I could see doing that, too - come here over and over as millions of magnificent mini-beings to experience all the wonders of life, and the ultimate wonders of family and friendship.
So the reincarnation question seems to be answered for me as I was guessing, too - because all life is one, we can conceivably access the memories of anyone who lived before us (and maybe also after us - the Hopi Indians had prophecies hundreds of years ago about towers of crystal and black lines cross-crossing the land).
Because the full reality is that our "I am" is part of the huge "I am," in a sense all lives actually are our past lives.
Anita's analogy was a hand; the fingers are human beings and the hand is God, but the definition of "hand" includes fingers. ("Each soul, each soul completes Me" - Daniel Ladinsky) I had been picturing mushrooms, how the surface fruits are like human beings and the system underneath growing them is God, and also, the whole living organism/fungi is God. Anita confirmed through her experience of death that we both shed our layers of form in the place after death (including gender and name!) but also remain our distinct, individual selves, completely recognizable to loved ones.
This is not heretical to Christianity; Eastern Orthodox have theology about "theosis," becoming one with God. Anita basically gives very clear thesosis instructions. What is so delightful is that it is about uncovering your pre-existing radiance, your nature of love - not climbing a spiritual mountain. Suffering helps in the process to the degree that, in order to heal from it, you must practice self-love. But suffering is not required. Anyone can start practicing loving themselves at any point. (Martha Beck was so helpful for this for me.)
When I say that we're made out of God and are part of God - I'm not saying we are gods, or that we are God and God is not. I'm not being Kanye West. That's animal perspective, that's pecking-ordered, power-hungry, desperation stuff. Nope. Love doesn't work like that. Anita described God as a formless being of unconditional love, although maybe she was in some outer regions of God's essence because she said she knew if she went "further up and further in" she wouldn't be able to return to life and her body here, and Eben Alexander talks about many different planes of heaven. Though, ultimately, I don't mind if there is no face or body involved with God; God has to be personal regardless, because "love" is incompatible with "impersonal." Love cannot exist without a connection between at least two.
Anita's main message is that loving yourself is the most important thing you can do, and all truly good actions flow from that center. That syncs very well with the Christian message that God is love and God loves you. If God loves you, you should definitely love yourself! (Loving and caring for yourself IS God loving you.)
Here are some terrific quotes:
"If you really loved yourself, so many of your issues and problems in life would be solved and healed."
"Other people love you more when you love yourself more."
"The more you love yourself, the less fear you have in your life."
"Let emotions move through you, but make your life about celebration, regardless of what you're going through. That is really important."
"We haven't come here for the purpose of suffering."
Which is related to the other thing I keep pondering... I watched a documentary on Netflix about tests done at Berkeley on a drug that is released in the brain only at birth and death (DMT). The scientist heading the study eventually stopped it because he felt he was messing with actual and very powerful spiritual realities. One woman mentioned seeing the place where souls wait to be born. I really resonate with the idea that I (and everyone) existed before I was given this body, and that I chose to come here - maybe even knowing what my whole life would end up looking like, including the worst and most painful parts (because I was outside of time at that point). Choosing all of my history, past and future - choosing all the goodness even with the cost of limitation and suffering - that is such an empowering thought and helps me move forward with much more peace in both mind and body.
P.P.S. I've been getting acupuncture weekly as a treatment for lingering PTSD symptoms, and WHAT A GIFT.
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